It was donated to the city by Nottingham industrialist Philip E F Clay, of Radcliffe-on-Trent near Nottingham, who gave £5,000 to Nottingham City Council. He requested that it should mark the visit of Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh on 28 June 1949, for the 500th anniversary of the 1449 Charter making the Borough of Nottingham into a separate County from Nottinghamshire.

The 2.1 metre high bronze statue was sculpted by James Woodford RA, a former student of the Nottingham School of Art, and made by Morris Singer & Co of Basingstoke, Hampshire. It was estimated that it should last for 6,000 years.

James Woodford was born in Nottingham in 1894, before moving to London. James also designed Queen Elizabeth’s heraldic beasts which were made especially for the royal approach to Westminster for the Coronation in 1953.

The site for the statue, in the dry moat outside the Castle, was chosen in November 1951 by Nottingham City Council for its medieval character and for the legendary association with Robin Hood.

The statue stands alone; James Woodford said at the time “Personally I think it would have been too sentimental to put Maid Marian with Robin Hood.” But around the statue are reliefs depicting scenes from the legends; Maid Marian helping Robin and Friar Tuck in their fight against Guy of Gisborne’s men, Richard the Lionheart joining Marian’s hand with Robin’s, Little John and Robin fighting on a bridge and Robin shooting his last arrow.

Robin Hood is one of the world’s best known and most enduring legends, the stories attract visitors from all over the world, who come to see the statue and have their photograph taken standing next to it.

The Robin Hood statue and the Castle Gatehouse are just a few minutes walk along Friar Lane from the Old Market Square.

Nottingham is a large English city in Nottinghamshire in the East Midlands region of the UK, well known internationally for its links with the Robin Hood legends.

South Parade and Poultry

Nottingham is the seventh largest urban area in the UK, which ranks it in size between the cities of Liverpool and Sheffield.

Due to the tightly drawn city boundary Nottingham has a relatively small population of 306,700 (2011 estimate), but the city forms part of the Nottingham urban area, which has a population of 729,977 (2011 census), although Eurostat’s Larger Urban Zone lists the population of the area at 825,600 (2004 estimate) and the ‘Journey to Work Area’ has a catchment of about 1.1 million people.

General settlement of what is now the centre of the city probably began around 600 AD, with Nottingham rising in prominence through the Middle Ages and the pre-industrial era, following the construction of Nottingham Castle from around 1067.

Albert Street

The city grew rapidly in size and prosperity during the Industrial Revolution, largely due to the textile industry, and obtained worldwide recognition for lace making and for household names such as Raleigh bicycles, Players cigarettes and Boots the Chemist.

Today Nottingham is one of six designated Science Cities, home to more than 15,000 businesses with a wide range of science and technology sectors, including biomedical sciences, ICT, environmental technologies and advanced engineering, along with significant employment in creative industries and more than 50 regional and national headquarters.

Nottingham is an energetic, cosmopolitan city of first-class shopping, cafes, bars and restaurants, thriving universities and businesses, with a pioneering art and culture scene of live music, theatre, art galleries and museums.

These dates are all taken from my ‘Events and dates in Nottingham’s history’ pages.

Goose Fair Painting by Harry Haslam

Goose Fair 1907 by Harry Haslam

Not long ago I won this wonderful painting of Nottingham’s Goose Fair (1907) by local artist Harry Haslam in a Nottingham Post and True Colours Art Gallery competition.

Harry Haslam paints from old postcards and takes photographs of the buildings that still remain to get more information. Harry reproduces the detail as accurately as possible and in every one of his pictures hides an image of his faithful dog Jude.

This is a slightly random assortment of dates and snippets of information about Nottingham that I’ve been collecting on and off since the early 1990s, or thereabouts. It isn’t an exhaustively researched academic treatise, I’ve just compiled it out of personal interest and because I like lists.

As a matter of convenience, for me, I’ve broken the information down into these periods (click to go to):

I’ve collected the information from a huge number of places, including my memory of events since I came to live in Nottingham. A few historical dates I’ve come across have alternative years cited, so I’ve quoted the date that seems most valid to me, depending on the source, background information and related material.

One thing I didn’t do when I originally compiled the list, and now regret, is to cite source material. I will gradually address this, but due to the huge variety of sources it will take a very long time.

I’ve put the sources of information I can remember in the References section and hope that I’ve not made too many mistakes in writing the lists. I’ve also inserted one or two events that were external to Nottingham, just to give a little context.

I will update and add information as I come across it and I will be very grateful if anyone reading this would let me know of any information that is either wrong or missing.

When I moved to Nottingham in the 1970s I made these annotations on a selection of typical phrases used by local colleagues and neighbours.

Some of these idioms have almost vanished from daily use in the last few decades, although you still hear similar phrases in some Nottingham neighbourhoods and in older generations of local people.

A few younger Nottingham residents now have an inflection of ‘Estuary English‘; a euphemism for a mild version of the London and South East accent, which has flourished for hundreds of miles outside of London.

I’ve always used public transport to travel into Nottingham to work, because it’s convenient and good value for money and far more relaxing than driving on busy roads and trying to find somewhere to park in the city centre.

Also, I’m intrigued by the habits of people on the bus.

Although in this instance I’m limiting myself to location and locution; mobile phones, littering, vandalism and ingestion/vomiting can wait for another occasion to arrive. Or perhaps three occasions to turn up at the same time.

Location

Regular travellers tend to sit in the same seat or area, particularly on the first part of the route, before the bus gets too busy. Passengers boarding further down the route have less chance of a regular ‘preferred’ seat, so they tend to be less specific about actual seats, but do appear to have a preferred zone of the bus to aim for.

By the time the bus nears the city centre, passengers either take whatever is available or just stand, so regular seat domination is largely confined to people from the outer suburbs.

There is also a regular pattern to the way people spread themselves about the bus as it starts to pick up more passengers along the route; firstly by occupying alternating window seats, then as those seats fill up, people alternate aisle seats, ideally with no one sitting directly in front or behind, or they survey the lower deck and decide there might be more chance of getting a seat to themselves on the upper deck, even if it means negotiating the stairs.

At least when you travel upstairs these days you are no longer in jeopardy of watering eyes, ashtray scented clothing or departing with antique kipper effect lungs.

Locution

My principal nosiness, I mean interest, in the observation of people on public transport is in the greeting or parting comments they make to the driver.

There aren’t so many actual greetings, the occasional “Hello” or “Morning”, even the rare “Areet mi duck”, with a high proportion of people not even bothering to acknowledge the person behind the wheel. However, on alighting there is far more variety.

“Thanks” and “thank you” are obviously the most common parting comments and again a majority of people say nothing and exit quickly without making eye contact. But there are quite a few “Cheers!”, “See you later” and “Thanks mate”; these largely said by younger men.

Now “See you later” and “Thanks mate” seem reasonable exclamations to me, but why would you say “Cheers!” which is a toast for drinking situations? When did it become a colloquialism for “thanks”? If this is a developing trend I’m waiting with some anticipation for alighting passengers to call to the driver “To your health!”, “Chin Chin!” or “Bottoms up!”

I’ve not travelled on a late night bus for a while; I wonder what remarks passengers regale the driver with when they’ve actually been drinking? Probably shouldn’t ask.

The occasional “Thank you driver!” now seems to be dying out, as it’s mainly expressed by older men in cloth caps or women with perms and head scarves.

I’ve recently noticed “Nice one!” or “Nice one mate!” being flung in the direction of the driver, so far this is also only being expressed by young men. Are they just making a general remark or is it a comment on something specific? Perhaps the fine cut of the driver’s uniform, the remarkable cleanliness of the bus or the exquisite view from the top deck?

Once in a blue moon there are exiting (as opposed to exciting) passengers that take the parting remarks to a whole new level. I’ve a fairly regular observation of one person who exits the bus fairly slowly, waving and keeping eye contact with the driver, while uttering a relentless stream of comments alone the lines of “Bye, have a good one, bye, see you, be good, bye, can’t get any worse, bye, don’t work too hard, bye, see you later!”

My usual bus route drops me off literally right outside the office and my own remarks are almost entirely limited to “Morning” and “Thanks”, although if it’s particularly wet or cold, I do occasionally, with a pathetic attempt at humour, ask the driver if they can get any closer to the door.

In the heart of Nottingham there are two large art-deco stone lions, resting either side of the Council House steps, guarding the entrance and surveying the historic Old Market Square.

Council House dome

Nottingham’s superlative Council House, with its 200 foot high dome and ten and a half ton bell called Little John, was designed by the architect T Cecil Howitt, but the lions, and much of the sculpture, were by Nottingham sculptor Joseph Else (1874-1955). Joseph Else was the principle of the Nottingham School of Art on Waverly Street between 1923 and 1939.

The lions have been a popular symbol in Nottingham for many years and since 2006 Nottingham City Council has used the lion on some of its promotional

To local people meeting at the ‘Left Lion’ has been an indispensable part of life in Nottingham since the Council House opened in 1929. The ‘Left Lion’ is the one on your left as you face the steps and entrance at the front of the building. A Nottingham arts and listings paper is called the Left Lion.

The two lions are known locally to a few people as Leo and Oscar, although some would say Menelaus and Agamemnon, and you would be hard pressed to find anyone from Nottingham who doesn’t recognize them.

I put the original version of this description of Nottingham on ‘Where I’ve Been’, well, it’s more like an extended list than a description, which is down to my writing skills, lack of that is, but I love living in Nottingham. It’s an outstanding city.

Clumber Street

Nottingham is a vibrant city, with first-class shopping attracting millions of people every year and consistently ranked in the top five UK shopping destinations. There are over 1,300 outlets; independent retailers, designer boutiques and high street favourites, with shoppers spending around £1.8 billion a year.

Nottingham Castle houses a museum and art gallery and has superb grounds with views across the city and over the Trent valley. There are also museums and spectacular parks at Wollaton Hall and Newstead Abbey, along with many other parks and gardens. The city’s Arboretum was the first designated public park in Nottingham and officially opened on 11 May 1852.

Nottingham has two of the country’s foremost universities, Nottingham University and Trent University, and has the third largest student population in England, with more than 55,000 students at the universities alone.